hitherto unperceived. In a despotic state of society it is a crime to teach human beings their rights, and it is only when the principle of selfgovernment has been firmly established that such a process is permitted, and deemed to be a public duty. A characteristic of low states of society is a fear of raising men above their station. The slaveholder of the United States denies to the slave the right of education, because it would unfit him for his degraded position; and it is only so far back as 1816 that Whitbread, when advocating national education, was opposed by Windham, who told the House of Commons, "that his friend Dr. Johnson was of opinion that it was not right to teach reading beyond a certain extent in society. The dangers were, that if the teachers of good and the propagators of bad principles were to be the candidates for the control of mankind, the latter would be too likely to be successful. The increase of this sort of introduction to knowledge would only tend to make the people study politics, and lay them open to the arts of designing men."

The meaning of this bigoted utterance was to deny to all human beings below a certain rank the right of mental culture, and also the right of studying politics. Some of this folly and selfishness has passed away, but much still remains; and it is

common to hear members of the middle class complain that their servants dress so well as not to be distinguished from themselves: in this case the right to look like what society considers a lady or a gentleman is denied to those who have to earn their bread by serving others. The writer remembers a lady regretting the progress of grammar and correct pronunciation among the working class, because it increased the difficulty of distinguishing them from their "betters." It is also not uncommon to ridicule the advance made by domestic servants, and to represent them as declining to enter service unless allowed to have access to a library and use a piano. It does not occur to the low-bred people perpetrating these miserable jokes, that the moral right to the cultivation of faculties belongs indifferently to rich and poor, and that the practical duty is to assist the process as far as the necessities of labour render possible. The natural result of free development of faculties is to make the members of a community self-reliant and selfdependent, ready to give and take the services of others on equal terms, but eschewing patriarchal governments, fatherly squires, motherly priests, or patronizing employers. When this process is unresisted and encouraged by the wealthy and educated class, there is no interruption of social polite

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ness; but where it has to be fought for, self-assertion takes a rude and unpleasant form. When the upper classes believed in Owenism, Lord Lauderdale, after listening to explanations from the head of the new sect, exclaimed, "Oh, I see it all! Nothing can be more complete for the poorer and the working classes. But what will become of us?"* It was a dreadful anticipation to such a man that the people should grow independent of a ruling class, and it requires a good original nature and a high degree of self-culture for any one to love independent characters, and desire to be a member of a really independent community. And yet by slow and toilsome ways society is arriving at this condition; and the problem will be to reconcile the claims of personal liberty with the duty of following greater minds.

Such appear to be the principal considerations belonging to the "Doctrine of Rights;" some of the more important applications will be considered in future chapters.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY..

CANNING thought it a witty joke against the Radicals of his day to accuse them of wishing for a time "when France should reign, and laws be all repealed;" but the tendency of an improving society is manifestly towards doing without rulers, and diminishing law. At present we, in this country, are in a condition of over-legislation; but no laws are passed that are at variance with public opinion, and as that opinion grows wiser and more powerful it will have less faith in coercion and more in conviction, will learn to disbelieve in punishment, and organize prevention, and, in fact, ascend from a semi-brutal to a true human state. A society is progressing when in the main its movements are towards liberty; and retrogressing when they are in the direction of external interference with collective or individual rights. Liberty has been the theme of poets and philosophers in all ages that

have contributed to dignify humanity, and it is a painful symptom of decline when its principles are unknown, or its practice superseded. External circumstances may favour or hinder its development, but its great characteristic is that of growth in the human heart and mind, and Wordsworth was right when he declared that it could not be given

'By all the blended powers of earth and heaven."

It is wrong to say liberty is the creation of law, but it is of necessity in some directions bounded by law, and the great object of a rational community is to set up or tolerate as few of these boundaries as possible, and only where they can be plainly proved to prevent a considerable amount less evil than they create. It is a reproach to us as a nation that our children only learn liberty by a sort of automatic and unconscious exercise of it in permitted directions; and hence no principles being understood, practice is often wrongfully governed. Very few feel that any infringement of personal liberty, even for the most needful purposes, is in itself an evil, and that the application of any form of coercion should be looked upon with the horror associated with a surgical operation, and considered as a proof that a greater or less quantity of bar